e
faintly in the fire and sounds died away. The stillness of sleep fell about
him. Scarce had he fallen into slumber than his eyes seemed to open wide
and wakeful, and out of the gloom beyond the smouldering fire he saw a
human form slowly revealing itself, until there stood clearly within his
vision a figure which he at first took to be that of Mukoki, the chief. But
in another moment he saw that it was even taller than the tall chief, and
that its eyes had searched him out. When he heard a voice, speaking in Cree
the words which mean, "Whither goest thou?" he was startled to hear his
own voice reply: "I am going back to my people."

He stared into vacancy, for at the sound of his voice the vision faded
away; but there came a voice to him back through the night, which said:
"And it is here that you have found that of which you have dreamed--Life,
and the Valley of Silent Men!"

Roscoe was wide awake now. The voice and the vision had seemed so real to
him that he looked about him tremblingly into the starlit gloom of the
forest, as if not quite sure that he had been dreaming. Then he crawled
into his balsam shelter, drew his blankets about him, and fell asleep.

The next day he had little to say to his Indian companion as they made
their way downstream. At each dip of their paddles a deeper sickness seemed
to enter into his heart. Life, after all, he tried to reason, was like a
tailored garment. One might have an ideal, and if that ideal became a
realization it would be found a misfit for one reason or another. So he
told himself, in spite of fill the dreams which had urged him on in the
fight for better things. There flooded upon him now the forceful truth of
what Ransom had said. His work, as he had begun it, was at an end, his
fabric of idealism had fallen into ruins. For he had found all that was
ideal--love, faith, purity, and beauty--and he, Roscoe Cummins, the
idealist, had repulsed them because they were not dressed in the tailored
fashion of his kind. He told himself the truth with brutal directness.
Before him he saw another work in his books, but of a different kind; and
each hour that passed added to the conviction within him that at last that
work would prove a failure. He went off alone into the forest when they
camped, early in the afternoon, and thought of Oachi, who would mourn him
until the end of time. And he--could he forget? What if he had yielded to
temptation, and had taken Oachi with him? She wo